#foodit

Now we have a logo; our development team working hard on the FOODit

software out of Sydney branch where they work alongside other startups at http://fishburners.org; and our good friend Sam Johnson of http://www.feedbackloop.com.au did us the honour of putting the new FOODit logo on their wall (photo below). Onward and upward!

By Rif Kiamil

It’s no secret to my friends that I love Buffalo wings. The spicier the better. Fortunately, I travel a lot for work and have made a small mission out of finding the best buffalo wings in the world. From Singapore to Chicago to Boston, I’ve tasted the spiciest, most delectable wings available.

So it was to my surprise when I stumbled across The Orange Buffalo, a food stand right here in London, offering wings that delight the taste buds as they simultaneously burn them off. My kind of place. But perhaps more intriguing is that The Orange Buffalo is a rare London food stand success story. While Shoreditch and Brick Lane are becoming symbols of new food movements, the food stand/food truck trend hasn’t taken off here in the U.K. like it has in North America. And that’s a bad thing.

Why do food trucks and food stands matter? Because restaurateurs the world over are discovering that they are the perfect way to test out new menus, new locations and new markets for their food. The barriers to entry for food trucks are significantly lower than new restaurants. Food trucks also operate in leaner ways and can allow for changing locations—which can be huge when exploring new markets.

In short, food trucks and food stands are the ideal innovation incubators.

  The Orange Buffalo is a kind of “old school” food stand. They aren’t interested in opening a brick and mortar location, they just want to serve great wings from a simple stand with low overhead costs. But across the pond, food truck innovators are proving that mobile establishments can be the perfect stepping stone to brick and mortar.

  When I last visited Vancouver, I had the pleasure of trying Japadog, a local sensation that’s brought Japanese-style hotdogs to British Columbia. Back in 2005, Japadog was founded by Japanese immigrants with little startup capital. It was the definition of scrappy.

  It would be easy to write the endeavor off as one among many food stands, but its owners had bigger plans. By 2010, after opening 4 food carts around Vancouver, Japadog had opened its first brick and mortar store. Today the Japadog family is the envy of startup restaurants across Vancouver.

  And yet the Japadog story is not an outlier. In fact, food trucks and carts are increasingly taking North America by storm, serving as proving grounds for aspiring restaurateurs. But food trucks don’t need to be startups. Many established restaurants are branching out and finding success with secondary mobile locations that allow them to test out exciting new menus or customer bases.

  We need to do everything we can to encourage a food truck culture right here in the U.K. Food trucks enable a range of innovation and exploration that simply isn’t possible with all brick and mortar restaurants. That’s not to say it’s an issue of mobile versus brick and mortar. If done right, the two can actually reinforce each other, boosting the industry as a whole. And that sounds like the perfect environment for foodies like me.